THE SHORES OF LANTERNLAND.
Here they stopped for a day, and were received with great friendship by the Queen of that country. Pantagruel was greatly vexed that he could not speak the Lantern language, so as to talk with Her Majesty; but, Panurge, who understood it just as well as he did his maternal French, acted as his interpreter. After supping with Her Majesty in the royal banquet hall, Pantagruel asked whether he had reached the island too late to be in time for their great Annual Fair. He was told that the Fair was already over; and he then acquainted the Queen with the purpose of his voyage, and prayed her to grant him a guide to the Kingdom of India. Of course the Queen was greatly interested when she heard that it was love for the bright little Princess of India which had brought a Giant so great a distance. She promised all he asked, and assured him that he should have her own particular guide—the best in all Lanternland—to go with them the next morning.
THE QUEEN OF LANTERNS.
Pantagruel, after saluting Her Majesty with such majestic grace as became so stately a prince, withdrew, followed by his friends, to take some rest. The next day, having first seen that their guide was on board, they took their leave, amid the glad cheers and huzzas of the good Lanternists, who vowed that, if they had only stopped one more night, they would have made such a blaze along the coast as would have lighted them half-way to India.
Every story must have its ending.
And the ending of this story is that the good Prince Pantagruel, led by his guide from Lanternland, first passed over the Caspian mountains in search of his charming Princess; then defied the Cannibals; conquered the Island of Pearls; and, at last, after reaching India, married the lovely daughter of King Prestham of that land.
To tell the story of the supper which good King Gargantua had promised to give Pantagruel, and which was to equal that of King Ahasuerus, and of the great and valorous deeds of Pantagruel, after his marriage, would make a history much more wonderful than what you have just read. But this is a part of his life which the Wise Man—who so loved the three good Giants, Grandgousier, Gargantua, and Pantagruel—promised to write, but never did.